8 Reales Madness Collection - final chapter
TwoKopeiki
✭✭✭✭✭
Hey Darksiders! I hope you forgive my first SSP (selfish self promotion), but this forum has been along for the ride with me for almost 20 years as I chased rarities, analyzed counterfeits, and discovered new major varieties in the Mexico Portrait 8 Reales series. Well, I'm putting most of the collection up for sale. I got way too deep on this series and while cataloging yet another minor die marker, I realized it stopped being fun somewhere along the way. While i'm considering my next collecting area, I've consigned my collection to Stacks for the upcoming August ANA Sale.
There's a little bit for everyone: top pops, rare varieties, wild toners, significant provenances, unique coins, etc...
You can see the ones from my collection by searching Stacks upcoming lots for Martyn Reales
Over the years I've played different registry games and had lots of cross-overs for these coins. Most of these have both an NGC and a PCGS cert numbers (and imaging), regardless of the current holder. If you're interested in a specific coin, please don't hesitate to let me know and i'll give you the history and some of my personal commentary.
You can also check out my Instagram for videos of most of these coins: https://www.instagram.com/8_reales_numis
Thank you all for being a big part of the 8 Reales Madness journey. Hope my posts over the years were informative and you caught some of my excitement for the series.
I do plan to continue collecting and actively looking for a new direction. Mexican War for Independence period always fascinated me and I'll likely focus there, but please share some ideas 
Roman.
A few of my favorites from the sale are below.
Favorite Toners:
1780 AU58+ crossed as a plus from PCGS to NGC
1789 AU58 that at some point was MS61 although i like it as a 58 more
1793 AU58
1795 AU58
1796 AU55 although it was a 58 in another life and holder
1802 with wild electric colors AU55
1802 AU58 with nice green and champaign toning and luster
1808 Ferdinand VII AU58 ex: Huntington - special coin
1816 MS62 with watery luster and blue toning
1817 AU58 with nice old cabinet toning from the PLUS ULTRA collection and a minor variety 1/1 in date
Favorite Varieties:
1772-MF Inverted Assayer and Mint Mark - the rare MF vs FM assayer combo
1783-FM
1795/6-FM - discovery coin for this variety
1816/5-JJ
1804-TH CARLUS legend error
1802/1-TH - best example of this tough variety
1815-JJ/HJ - another best example of this variety
And a few unique (at least for now) major varieties:
1803-FM - this coin first surfaced in 1981 and another example have not been found since
1797/6-FM
1803/1-FT
1803/2-FT
As one chapter ends, another one begins.
Comments
Collect a year, its extreme i know, but so interesting!
Nice images for some attractive coins… good luck with the sale
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
You have been a big part of building the collecting base for Portrait varieties. Well done!
I sure do hope you stick around here and as a collector in general.
Latin American Collection
Good luck man! Quite a run!
TalerUniverse.com is a curated numismatic project dedicated to the silver talers, crowns, and medals of the Habsburg Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, spanning the 16th–18th centuries. The collection emphasizes historically significant issues, rare mint varieties, and high-grade NGC/PCGS examples, presented with detailed historical context, scholarly references, and high-resolution photography. TalerUniverse aims to serve both as a private collection showcase and a growing reference resource for collectors, researchers, and students of early-modern European coinage.
Quite an amazing collection you've assembled! I have learned a ton from your posts on portaits. Looking forward to discussing WOI with you in the future!
Wow! What great coins! How many new cars are you going to buy?
All are fantastic coins and assembled by an astute collector. What's not to like?
And you earned a Pedigree for your collection. That is an honorable achievement.
Good luck on the sale, I'm sure you'll do great! Which I can only assume means that you'll be buying a round in Scottsdale?
chopmarkedtradedollars.com
@TwoKopeiki what a sad notice.
But what a great bunch of coins.
As @Boosibri said, I hope you stay as your knowledge in the area is invaluable... and you are a really nice guy!
And here I thought I was out of the market for good -- I'll definitely be enticed to bid on some of those Carolus IIIs, now.
Best wishes in your future collection adventures, Roman!
Good timing and good venue to sell great coins. Congratulations on your set and best of luck on the sale.
It's certainly an interesting time to start a new collection. On the one hand, you have lots of new books coming out (in WOI, there has been a few published already and Max's should be out within the year). On the other hand, prices make it tough to compete for the better coins. Certainly I would be unable to form my collection if I were starting today, and there are many that I still need that are virtually unobtainable for me now.
You're going to have to think long and hard about what you want to undertake given the climate we are in.
Have you given any thought to holed Spanish Colonial Reales in details grades? I know of a bunch for sale cheap that are already in Canada, so you will save GST.
Thanks everyone! @lermish regardless of how my collection fares, i'll be more than happy to buy a round in Scottsdale
@pruebas i'm looking forward to all the new books on the subject and have been reading up on archived articles in the USMEX journals over the years. I really like the early Durango and Guadalajara periods, so perhaps i'll start there. Or I can pivot to all the new Canadian Royal Mint NCLT - i heard they are using paint and Swarovski crystals these days
@1984worldcoins that sounds like a nice theme. Maybe 1763 as the end of the Seven Years War and the world as of the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Or 1789 being one of the greatest turning points in history. Nice idea!
Good luck with the sale - I hope your coins do really well!
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and enthusiasm here. I hope you stay involved.
My current "Box of 20"
Enjoyed meeting you at NYINC and having dinner. Hoping this sale is just a collecting pivot and you will still be a familiar face around these parts. Will be rooting for you in the Stacks sale.
Great photos of a nice run of coins!
A few folks reached out about my registry sets at PCGS and NGC. As i've mentioned, most of these coins have cert numbers from both services, regardless of the plastic the are in now (which is mostly pedigreed NGC). I'll delete my sets this week, but if a registry player ends up winning a coin and wants all historic cert numbers to have a record of the coin on both sides of the street - let me know and i'll be more than happy to provide.
I should probably do an AMA on crossing over colonial 8 Reales based on my experience. Crossed hundreds over the years both ways and had some interesting results.
Hope the sale goes well. Looking forward to reading about your next collecting endeavors
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Best of luck with the sale. Some amazing coins for sure.
I’ve really enjoyed looking at your coins and reading your posts!
Thank you. Sale going live in 20 minutes, so i'm on pins and needles
@coinkat - i'm not going anywhere, but will likely pivot in what I'm collecting
@TwoKopeiki you will need to tell us how was it!
Good luck @TwoKopeiki, I have seen lots of strong bids already, it's going to go great!
The first part of my collection sold today. Overall I would qualify it as realizing strong prices, albeit not necessarily coming from the coins I expected. Huge shout out to the Stacks team and Gabriel who did a great job auctioneering my section.
A few coins that stood out are below. I'm listing hammer prices, so add 22% to calculate total cost.
1779-Mo FF/FM 8 Reales NGC EF Details
A very rare over-assayer variety, but I did document multiple examples of it in the past. So when it hammered at $4,200 - I was surprised.
1783-Mo FM 8 Reales NGC EF Details
Another very rare variety. Together with a 1778-FM considered to be one of the key dates for Carlos III series. I was estimating around $2-3k and it hammered at a whopping $11k
1795/6-Mo FM NGC AU-55
Didn't know what to expect from this one, but was pleasantly surprised when it hammered at $4,400. This is one of the varieties discovered by me and also the actual discovery coin for the variety.
1802/1-Mo FT NGC MS-62
Best example of this variety in existence and not likely to be dethroned anytime soon (if ever). A complete luster bomb. Hammered at $7k against a $2.5k estimate.
1804-Mo TH CARLUS legend error NGC VF-35
A very famous error and only 2 coins that i know of in a straight graded holder, although i have documented about a dozen of these in various problem states. Hammered at $6,500 - more than double of the high estimate.
Now, a few coins surprised me with how relatively little interest they've gathered.
The crown jewel of the sale was the 1803-FM 8 Reales ex: Rutherford, ex: 1981 Money Company sale. It's unique and well documented. Estimate was in the $10-15k and it barely hit the bottom of that range with the $9k hammer ($10,980 with BP).
The other "only one known" major varieties also didn't do that great: 1803/1 (discovery coin) - $1800 hammer, 1803/2 (discovery coin) - $700 hammer, 1799/8 (discovery coin) - $1,350 hammer.
Overall, it was a positive experience. Looking forward to the internet portion of the sale, although don't have high hopes for it as it's mostly lower graded varieties and some outstanding toners in AU.
Congratulations on assembling such a fine collection, Roman. I should let you know that I had a couple of the lots bookmarked, but auction winnings and purchases elsewhere in my current areas of focus depleted my funds enough that I didn’t end up bidding. It was tempting, though.
Collector since 1976. On the CU forums here since 2001.
Great results!
Sounds like some good results! Congrats. I enjoyed seeing a few videos with you/your collection on Instagram.
My current "Box of 20"
How do you feel now that the sale is mostly over? Peace, loss, joy?
Latin American Collection
You have another chance next Tuesday. The next sale has some nice AU toners that should be pretty affordable and are above-average eye appeal.
Excitement for the future